Mile News

More than just a race for Cochran-Fikes

Administrator set records for Penn track in 70s including the first Ivy League athlete to run a sub-4 minute Mile.

By Steven Jacobson, The Daily Pennsylvanian

As a bookish, unathletic high school freshman, Elton Cochran-Fikes shuddered at the idea of anything having to do with sports.

Little did he know that, less than a decade later, he would become the first Ivy League athlete to run a Mile in less than four minutes.

Now Penn’s athletic compliance officer, Cochran-Fikes set twenty-five school records, won seven Heptagonal medals and twice was named an All-American as a middle distance runner for the Quakers’ track and field team in the early 1970s. Stints in institutions as diverse as the Marines and seminary took him from Virginia to Harlem to Harvard and everywhere in between.

Yet, despite the places he went in life, Cochran-Fikes could always return to the place where he felt most at home: Penn.

Born in a small North Carolina town, Denis E. Fikes — as he was known back then — was raised as the youngest of five children in a single-parent household. Although his older brother and sister were both actively involved with sports, Elton shied away from physical activity as a result of a sprinting race against his sister that ended poorly for him.

Return the Mile to prominence on the American & worldwide sports and cultural landscape by elevating and celebrating the Mile to create a movement.

ELEVATEBring Back the Mile as the premier event in the sport, and increase interest in and media coverage of the Mile for both those who love the distance as well as the general public.

CELEBRATEBring Back the Mile to celebrate the storied distance and to recognize the people who made and make the Mile great and to promote Mile events and the next generation of U.S. Milers.

NATIONAL MOVEMENTBring Back the Mile to create a national movement for the Mile as America’s Distance, to inspire Americans to run the Mile as part of their fitness program and to replace the 1600 meters at High School State Track & Field Meets across the country.

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